Sarawak Placing Integrity Officers in State Ministries to Stop Corruption

KUCHING, Nov 24 ― The state government will place trained certified integrity officers in all state ministries to ensure there is transparency and compliance with procedures in the awards of government contracts, Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Openg said last night.

The chief minister said the placement of integrity officers is done to stop any leakages in the awards of contracts by all the state ministries.

“I will not entertain any form of lobby from the business community to get the jobs from the state government,” Abang Johari said at the 67th anniversary dinner of the Sarawak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) here.

He said the integrity officers will also ensure that the business community will not be able to lobby for jobs from the state ministers.

The chief minister, however, did not say when the integrity officers will be posted in all the state ministers.

Abang Johari said he wants the business community to participate in healthy open competition among themselves for government jobs.

“But the problem is there are some people who may not get the jobs will try to create stories. They feed wrong information to certain people that the state government officers and ministers are corrupt,” he said.

He said such people are envious of the others who are successful in securing state government contracts.

“Mind you, I take allegations of corruption very seriously and that was why the first thing I did as the chief minister was for all the state ministers to take integrity pledge before Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission officers,” he said.

Abang Johari said while the business community expects the state government to have high integrity, the state overnment expects the same from the business community.

He said if corruption is allowed to take place in the state government, the economy will be in shamble.

“We must fear God, the business community must also fear God,” he said.